European PC dealers and disties are willing to put their heads in the lion's den. Like lambs to the slaughter they will queue up to do business with Dell, the nemesis of the channel - if the terms are right.

First Look This article concentrates on describing a basic Mandrake 9.0 installation and setup from a new user's viewpoint, using nothing but default settings all the way through. I've also tossed in a few notes on how Mandrake 9.0 differs from Mandrake 8.2 and other previous Mandrake releases.

"Videogames are a rip off", loudly proclaims the front of the FairPlay Campaign website, which is devoted to forcing publishers to reduce the price of games through a series of consumer pressure actions - including an all-out boycott of games purchasing in the first week of December.

ATI is to bundle Real Networks's RealOne Player, an "optimized" version, no less, with upmarket 9000 and 9700 series graphics cards. At the same time the graphics chip maker is to promote the RealOne SuperPass broadband content subscription service with its cards.

Microsoft High Command has noticed Australia, and is unleashing Steve Ballmer on it in an effort to stop its biggest customer in the southern hemisphere, Telstra, from going MIA, according to a report in today's Australian IT. It is not immediately clear to us whether the Aussies get Steve because they're still deemed by the High Command as not sufficiently important to rate Bill, or whether it's because the barking, yelping, frighteningly whirling Ballmer is deemed more appropropriate for such an upfront and demonstrative nation.

In ExtremeTech, the redoubtable Mark Hachman has unearthed Microsoft's "Windows Media Wish," where apparently users' wishes for future versions of Windows Media Player come true. But seeing the list of successful wishes has been around since March 25th,* and anyway we think Mark either missed something or was too deeply ironic for us, we're doing it too.

LettersDespite the official denial from Prince Charles press office that we obtained yesterday, many readers are convinced that the letter-writing heir to the throne really is "Henry Raddick", Amazon.com's most famous guest reviewer.